Aging Service Need and Use Among Chinese American Seniors: Intragroup Variations

Existing literature on aging service use by Asian/Chinese American seniors mainly focuses on documenting and explaining low service use in the Asian/Chinese senior population. However, service use is not uniformly low, and variations in need and use do occur within the Asian/Chinese senior population. Little research focuses on these service need and use variations. This paper focuses on those variations within one group, Chinese American seniors. Through a community-based case study, we found, first, that Chinese American seniors are internally diversified, and consist of several subgroups, which can be identified largely through immigration timing and status, work history, current living situations, and language and driving ability. Second, each subgroup has particular service need and use patterns. Third, service need and use variations are related to the characteristics that define the subgroups, to perceptions of service need, availability, accessibility and to service source preference. The findings from this study suggest that research in general about service need and use by minority seniors may be helped through more detailed analyses by sub-population, and through the use of perceptions of service availability and accessibility and service source preference.